A Drift from Redwood Camp | Page 8

agent's wife framed in the leafy screen behind
his lodge, the perfume of her hair and breath mingled with the spicing
of the bay, the brief thrill and tantalization of the stolen kiss still
haunted him. Through his long, shy abstention from society, and his
two years of solitary exile, the fresh beauty of this young Western wife,

in whom the frank artlessness of girlhood still lingered, appeared to
him like a superior creation. He forgot his vague longings in the
inception of a more tangible but equally unpractical passion. He
remembered her unconscious and spontaneous admiration of him; he
dared to connect it with her forgiving silence. If she had withheld her
confidences from her husband, he could hope--he knew not exactly
what!
One afternoon Wachita put into his hand a folded note. With an
instinctive presentiment of its contents, Elijah turned red and
embarrassed in receiving it from the woman who was recognized as his
wife. But the impassive, submissive manner of this household drudge,
instead of touching his conscience, seemed to him a vulgar and brutal
acceptance of the situation that dulled whatever compunction he might
have had. He opened the note and read hurriedly as follows:--
"You took a great freedom with me the other day, and I am justified in
taking one with you now. I believe you understand English as well as I
do. If you want to explain that and your conduct to me, I will be at the
same place this afternoon. My friend will accompany me, but she need
not hear what you have to say."
Elijah read the letter, which might have been written by an ordinary
school-girl, as if it had conveyed the veiled rendezvous of a princess.
The reserve, caution, and shyness which had been the safeguard of his
weak nature were swamped in a flow of immature passion. He flew to
the interview with the eagerness and inexperience of first love. He was
completely at her mercy. So utterly was he subjugated by her presence
that she did not even run the risk of his passion. Whatever sentiment
might have mingled with her curiosity, she was never conscious of a
necessity to guard herself against it. At this second meeting she was in
full possession of his secret. He had told her everything; she had
promised nothing in return--she had not even accepted anything. Even
her actual after-relations to the denouement of his passion are still
shrouded in mystery.
Nevertheless, Elijah lived two weeks on the unsubstantial memory of
this meeting. What might have followed could not be known, for at the

end of that time an outrage--so atrocious that even the peaceful Minyos
were thrilled with savage indignation--was committed on the outskirts
of the village. An old chief, who had been specially selected to deal
with the Indian agent, and who kept a small trading outpost, had been
killed and his goods despoiled by a reckless Redwood packer. The
murderer had coolly said that he was only "serving out" the tool of a
fraudulent imposture on the Government, and that he dared the
arch-impostor himself, the so- called Minyo chief, to help himself. A
wave of ungovernable fury surged up to the very tent-poles of Elijah's
lodge and demanded vengeance. Elijah trembled and hesitated. In the
thraldom of his selfish passion for Mrs. Dall he dared not contemplate a
collision with her countrymen. He would have again sought refuge in
his passive, non-committal attitude, but he knew the impersonal
character of Indian retribution and compensation--a sacrifice of equal
value, without reference to the culpability of the victim-- and he
dreaded some spontaneous outbreak. To prevent the enforced expiation
of the crime by some innocent brother packer, he was obliged to give
orders for the pursuit and arrest of the criminal, secretly hoping for his
escape or the interposition of some circumstance to avert his
punishment. A day of sullen expectancy to the old men and squaws in
camp, of gloomy anxiety to Elijah alone in his lodge, followed the
departure of the braves on the war-path. It was midnight when they
returned. Elijah, who from his habitual reserve and the accepted
etiquette of his exalted station had remained impassive in his tent, only
knew from the guttural rejoicings of the squaws that the expedition had
been successful and the captive was in their hands. At any other time he
might have thought it an evidence of some growing scepticism of his
infallibility of judgment and a diminution of respect that they did not
confront him with their prisoner. But he was too glad to escape from
the danger of exposure and possible arraignment of his past life by the
desperate captive, even though it might not have been understood by
the spectators. He reflected that the omission might